I think you ment 6.7 billon tonnes of CO2 equiv. A couple of countries have higher per capita emmissions then the US but they are very small (Luxembourg with 24.12 tonnes pc but only about 500,000 people or paraguay with 30.12 tpc but about 4.5 million people).
Every country that produces over 300 Millon tonnes, mostly well developed countries such as japan, germany, uk, france, italy have less then half the pc emmissions that the US, canada and australia have. All of these last reported in 2002 (some of the other results could be waaay off as many have not reported in more then 10 years).
America does stand out due to not only having high per capita emmissions but also by having a large population. America produces 3.7 times more CO2 equiv then its nearest rival and over five times more then Japan the 3rd largest emmitter.
> First there is the idea that some designer created everything and set up all the rules just so and simply let things run knowing > full well everything that would follow including the fact that we would be having this conversation today. This one is completely > and utterly outside of science since science assumes that the basic rules of the game are constant and doesn't deal with what > "created the rules"
The entirety of mathematics can be derived from three simple axioms yet mathematics is one very very complex system. So another option is that a "god" created a simple environment (set of axioms) and let the resulting entity (the universe) sort itself out.
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down.":P
>The anthropic principle is a principle that explains nothing at all. It is non-falsifiable, and therefore not science. Yep that is correct. Science does not attempt to explain things it cannot explain. The stong and weak anthropic principles fall squarely into the realm of philosopy. Neither the strong or weak argument is provable. In fact the two arguments are mirrors of each other.
a) We exist becuase the way the universe is constructed allows it. b) The universe is constructed in a way that allows us to exist.
Symetric and pointless questions. Neither is disprovable. Evolution has nothing to do with this.
> I'm asking why we exist, and you answer by saying, "given that we exist, things will look this way." I'm asking why isn't it the > case that we don't exist at all? Especially given the fact (if fact it be) that it's 10^43 time more likely that we not exist. You may be asking why we exist, but science is not asking or attempting to answer that question. The theory of evolution asks the question "how did we come to be what we are" (and how did everything else come to be the way they are)...Not "why are we here".
>> The theory of evolution is quite simple. It makes one simple statement. That is; "The percentage of a particular phenotype(in >> this day and age we now say genotype) changes over time." >> >> THat is it. That is the theory of evolution. I think this is very hard to disagree with.
>No. That statement would be true even if no evolution was possible; afte all, whenever I step on a bug, the percentage of that bug >phenotype relative to all other bug phenotypes changes. Similarly, every time my immune system kills a bacteria trying to invade my >body, the percentage of that bacteria relative to all bacteria changes. This is true even if every bug and bacteria is guaranteed >to be a carbon copy of its parent(s) (which they aren't, of course). Your single-sentence summary of evolution is true in all >imaginable worlds where organisms are born, die, or both, and there is more than one kind of organism, whether or not these >organisms are capable of producing any variation in their offspring or not.
You have just sumerised evolution very nicely. If a phenotype (genotype) is capable of being passed on to the next generation then changing the percentage of a phentotype relative to its population requires evolution to happen. Unless all beings are created with the same phenotype. Admittedly this system is small and closed in that eventually you will run out of phenotypes (if all copies/offsping are identical). If offspring can vary then you have evolution.
> And this is where you lose the whole core of the abortion issue: the people who believe that "the start of life," meaning, "the > gaining of a soul," happens at the moment of conception, and who will never believe anything different, because that's what their > priest tells them to believe. (Or what their priest told their mother, who tells them, but you get the point.)
But those poeple, like most extremists (pro or anti abortion in this case), are a very small but very very very vocal proportion of the population.
Politicians love these kind of issues. They give people the impression that debate is occuring when very few voters are actually involved. Its a great way to avoid needing well defined policies and comprehensive knowledge of the current situation and your own parties policies when being questioned.
These issues are a great way of polarising voters. Make them ingore the things your party is actually doing and make them concentrate on ideals. If you have enough people shouting in the media then most people will think it is important.
Obviously the 0.2% that is not empty space stops them:P
The particles they are trying to trap are generally very very small. The areogel is quite thick and allows the kinetic energy of the particle to be dispersed quite slowly as the particle penetrates it. This means the particles can be trapped without damaging them. The further the particle penetrates the more ke it had. The final size and mass of the particle when extracted from the areogel along with the penetration depth can tell you how much energy the particle had and quite probably, for the intersellar particles, which direction they came from.
You do need seperate trials unless all trials are conducted in exactly the same way. This is feasible for a short while but eventually the basis for the tests has to change and then you need to retest all drugs to again assess their relative efficacy.
My example of Asprin does have a strong basis. Asprin has been in use for 107 years. It has been synthesised for 109 years (as a side note, one of its natural forms, willow bark, has been in recoreded use in europe since 1763). This gives a great deal of clinical data as to its effects. At overdose levels it does not aliviate pain as much as other drugs (morphine). Note that I am not trying to say it is the best or worst pain relief for any individual with any arbitrary complaint. It is less harmfull to MOST patients then morphine or heroin but is less effective at pain relief. Stomach ulcers can be exacerbated by it so if you are suffering pain from ulcers you probably should not use asperin. Heroin is far more effective at relieving pain but its long and short term side effects are not pleasent (Asprin and Heroin were first synthesised at about the same time by one man (Felix Hoffmann)). The company, Bayers, that Hoffmann was working for shelved Asprin in favor of Heroin as they thought it more effective. Time has shown that Heroin is significantly more effective at relieving pain for most people. However it also is addictive and has no known benifical side effects.
So yes, over time, some idea of the relative effectivness of a drug can be determined (in a vauge way). But still a drug should be chosen based on the condition of the patient not on some abstract relative performance.
I do agree that the results of the FDA tests should be public domain.
The example was just to demonstrate the point I was describing. However it could also be considered a proof that relative efficacy is not important as it shows that there is at least one drug whose primary effects are not as pronounced as other drugs but which is wanted, needed and often a preferable drug for many patients.
As an earlier poster described, Phase I and II and III clinical trials are where human side effects and primary effects can be assessed. Thats after the FDA has shown that its not particularly likely to kill people and before they start giving it to people. So after a drug is approved by the FDA it is known to have acceptable short term side effects, possibly unknown long term effects and has been shown to be effective in its primary claim.
Now why would they need to perform comparative trials? To do that would require massive clinical trials (read as very very expensive). So they don't. They have shown that the drugs are, to a high probablity, safe and effective from then on the public become the guinea pigs and the relative utility of the drug becomes better understood.
Im trying to say that without tens of thousands of people with a wide variety of conditions trying a drug its relative performance cannot be assessed. It currently takes about 8 1/2 years from drug synthesis to FDA approval but you are suggesting that they delay approval even longer (10 to 15 years) to be able to print on the label "This drug is on average 2.8% more effective at reducing eczema than taditional steroid applications for people without condition X, symptom y, tendency z or....". This says nothing about the short and long term side effects, cost or basically how appropriate is is for YOU. It also says nothing about how well the drug performs relative to other drugs that are not included in the tests (and they cannot test against all other possible treatments)
So I will say it again; It is not important whether a drug has a better or worse performance then any other drug. The FDA should not and problaby could not make that assessment.
It does not matter if the drug is more or less effective then other drugs on the market. Many drugs (like asprin) have been shown to have benifical secondary affects (lowered blood pressure and anti-clot) even though thier primary affect is less effective then other drugs (iboprophine or morphine for that matter) currently on the market.
Some people are alergic to, or have bad site effects from, certain drugs. Another, albiet less effective, drug with the same affect could help here. Then there is drug combinations. The primary effects of some drugs combine in an addative manner while thier side effects do not. This means that greater pain relief could be provided with lower risk of addiction or overdose.
The full utility of a particular drug often only becomes known when it is in use. To get it into use you have to be fairly sure it won't kill too many people.
It is also very hard to quantify how much better or worse one drug is then another as the actual effect tends to depend on particular patient
> Hydrogen has not been developed as a energy producer, only a energy storage method.
That was the point I was trying to make. Even if biofuels are not net energy producers they can still be used, in the way that hydrogen is used, as a energy store and transportation medium. Both would require ramping up the energy production by other means.
Reducing use is an even better solution but not a particularly popular one. I live in the UK and in certain areas (major cities) there is good, if crowded, public transport (which flexible work hours could help alot with by stretching the rush hours). Most people live fairly close to thier work (less then 15 miles) and there are an increasing number of bike lanes to encourage use of bicycles. Bus lanes are springing up everywhere. In london cars are charged for entry to the city centre. All of these have been made to happen dispite strong opposition (well...apart from the bike lanes and living close to work). They were not popular but they do seem to be achiving the goals of reducing car use in cities and encouraging alternate transportation.
Its interesting to note the different ways they measure the energy.
But, as I said, it does not matter if they are net energy producers. As a mechaism for transporting and storing energy that is (mostly) compatible with current infrastructure (cars and gas stations) they are very useful. Using them would require an energy top-up from other sources (name the renewable power supply of your choice here) but that may not negate thier convienience. It will probably be a lot simpler then trying to switch to a hydrogen economy, but would not resolve issues with local pollution build up (your cities would still be smoggy) as hydrogen would.
Once the amount of energy requiured to extract oil from the ground exceeds the amount of energy we obtain from it...guess what will happen? Yep we'll carry on extracting oil from the ground. Oil is used for many things unrelated to energy production. As an energy carrier it, like biofuels (some of which are net energy producers), is a very convienient high density energy store. Should we carry on extracting oil just to use it as a convienient transport mechanism? No, but we probably will anyway.
Why put lots of money into developing a hyrogen economy when the infrastructure for a biofuel enconomy already exists? It will be interesting to see which, if either, approach wins out.
Re:I never thought I knew what was happening...
on
Rounding Algorithms
·
· Score: 1
How about the ever excellent "never terminating loop"
float i = 0.0;
for (float i = 0.0; i < 10000000; i+=1.0) { // do stuff here }
I think he means that any and all logic systems can be created from NAND gates and interconnets alone. Similarly, you can do the same with NOR gates. They are called "universal gates". This means that all processors, turing machines inclusive, can be created using just NAND gates and interconnects. You would need an infinite amount of them but who is counting? This also means that all current computer hardware can be constructed using a finite number of nand gates. Since finite is generaly acknowleged to be significantly less then infinite this hints that no current computers are turing complete (due to physical memory limitations alone)
Many languages that use braces as block delimiters allow you to use them anywhere. They are not just associated with for/if/while/bla statements. In java they are just scoping devices. They limit the variables defined within them to he scope they define. so the following works int bar = 0; {
int bar = 1;
while (bar
And should print "true"
The indentation approach to code blocks misses this aspect and cannot mimick it as two sequential code bloks would be indented similarly.
The cost of next gen fabrication plants is so high that most of these companies cannot risk building one on thier own. Even intel would be remarkably weary of the risk. So if they get together they can share the cost of construction and development and share the risk. Nobody is sure how good the yields are for.45 nm in volume production environments as there are no volume production facilities for the technology at the moment. Building the foundary is very very very expensive. It will take time and research to produce acceptable yields (most likely a year or two after opening if ever) but if they are first then they stand to make a huge amount of money (as they will probably patent important/crucial techniques). They will likely use the foundary to make chips for anyone who is willing to pay for the 0.45 nm process (AMD for example does not own current generation foundaries (let alone have enough money to build.45 nm foundaries)
No, There is land that hasn't been built on around interhanges. It is used, just not for buildings. As such it is not "vacant land". Motorway service stations (ie fast food, petrol, shops etc.) are sometimes built next to off ramps. More often the stations are built with thier own off ramps. Most off ramps from motorways do not have traffic lights (wonderful invention called a round-about) and are normally are well lit (power would not be a problem even if they did need traffic lights because there are lights already there)
Petrol stations on major (non motorway roads) tend to be built alongside roads not at junctions. Planning permission to build them includes analysis of the effect thier entrances would have on traffic flow. Keeping them away from junctions (especially busy ones) supposidely improves traffic flow/saftey.
Trees are a bitch no matter which language you use. If you can find a tree that satisfies your requirements then you are golden. But most of the time the "tree" modules/javascript/whatever does not satisfy your requirements.
As an example: most javascript based trees require the entire tree structure to be available before the tree is rendered for the client. This may work for you, it has not for me. Most Ajax tree systems (ie they request the children of a node you are expanding rather then having the information up front) only work if the tree is not able to change. If the tree can change then they do not update correctly.
By the way, that is not specifically ruby related, it is related to the "trees" that are available. Ruby will not help you here. nothing will help you here unless you want to do exactly what someone else has already done.
We've just done a few large projects using JSF (actually myfaces) and have found that it is very expensive up front. Design and implementaion take a lot of effort and knowledge to ensure that everything does not "go to shit" later on. By the way the developers are all very experienced (but not in JSF). Whether it is more maintainable in the long term is currently unanswerable as these projects are still new but most of the code is clean well structured java. Much of the up-front work was developing custom JSF components (which makes everything else much cleaner and simpler)
Often because they are off ramps from motorways or places where two major road cross. Nobody wants to live near them as they are rather unpleasent places due to having nothing there apart from busy roads. Again these have often been built after houses and towns so they tend to avoid the houses and towns.
Have you tried wap.google.com? Yahoo is reputed to be launching a site that will convert all serach result web pages into something more suitable for your phone. Not just wap phones either.
In the UK the long distance power grid tends not to follow roads. It dosen't need shallow gradients like cars. Even if it did you would have to have the mother of all step down transformers to tap it for power for your traffic lights. So they need a residentail/industrial level power supply. There are lots of them around but if the nearest is more then 1/2 a mile from the traffic lights then it is likely to cost more to install the cable (underground in this country for this category of power) then one of these ramps. Are they a good idea in all circumstances? No, of course not. Are there circumstances where they may be a good idea. Yes, most certainly.
It is quite common in this country for traffic lights to be situated on major roads that are a mile or more from the nearest inhabited areas. See, our infrastructure predates cars therefore major roads tend to end outside of or to go around towns and cities. This means there are major intersections away from built up areas.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you ment 6.7 billon tonnes of CO2 equiv. A couple of countries have higher per capita emmissions then the US but they are very small (Luxembourg with 24.12 tonnes pc but only about 500,000 people or paraguay with 30.12 tpc but about 4.5 million people).
Every country that produces over 300 Millon tonnes, mostly well developed countries such as japan, germany, uk, france, italy have less then half the pc emmissions that the US, canada and australia have. All of these last reported in 2002 (some of the other results could be waaay off as many have not reported in more then 10 years).
America does stand out due to not only having high per capita emmissions but also by having a large population. America produces 3.7 times more CO2 equiv then its nearest rival and over five times more then Japan the 3rd largest emmitter.
> First there is the idea that some designer created everything and set up all the rules just so and simply let things run knowing
:P
> full well everything that would follow including the fact that we would be having this conversation today. This one is completely
> and utterly outside of science since science assumes that the basic rules of the game are constant and doesn't deal with what
> "created the rules"
The entirety of mathematics can be derived from three simple axioms yet mathematics is one very very complex system. So another option is that a "god" created a simple environment (set of axioms) and let the resulting entity (the universe) sort itself out.
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."
>The anthropic principle is a principle that explains nothing at all. It is non-falsifiable, and therefore not science.
Yep that is correct. Science does not attempt to explain things it cannot explain. The stong and weak anthropic principles fall squarely into the realm of philosopy. Neither the strong or weak argument is provable. In fact the two arguments are mirrors of each other.
a) We exist becuase the way the universe is constructed allows it.
b) The universe is constructed in a way that allows us to exist.
Symetric and pointless questions. Neither is disprovable. Evolution has nothing to do with this.
> I'm asking why we exist, and you answer by saying, "given that we exist, things will look this way." I'm asking why isn't it the
> case that we don't exist at all? Especially given the fact (if fact it be) that it's 10^43 time more likely that we not exist.
You may be asking why we exist, but science is not asking or attempting to answer that question. The theory of evolution asks the question "how did we come to be what we are" (and how did everything else come to be the way they are)...Not "why are we here".
>> The theory of evolution is quite simple. It makes one simple statement. That is; "The percentage of a particular phenotype(in
>> this day and age we now say genotype) changes over time."
>>
>> THat is it. That is the theory of evolution. I think this is very hard to disagree with.
>No. That statement would be true even if no evolution was possible; afte all, whenever I step on a bug, the percentage of that bug
>phenotype relative to all other bug phenotypes changes. Similarly, every time my immune system kills a bacteria trying to invade my
>body, the percentage of that bacteria relative to all bacteria changes. This is true even if every bug and bacteria is guaranteed >to be a carbon copy of its parent(s) (which they aren't, of course). Your single-sentence summary of evolution is true in all >imaginable worlds where organisms are born, die, or both, and there is more than one kind of organism, whether or not these
>organisms are capable of producing any variation in their offspring or not.
You have just sumerised evolution very nicely. If a phenotype (genotype) is capable of being passed on to the next generation then changing the percentage of a phentotype relative to its population requires evolution to happen. Unless all beings are created with the same phenotype. Admittedly this system is small and closed in that eventually you will run out of phenotypes (if all copies/offsping are identical). If offspring can vary then you have evolution.
> And this is where you lose the whole core of the abortion issue: the people who believe that "the start of life," meaning, "the
> gaining of a soul," happens at the moment of conception, and who will never believe anything different, because that's what their
> priest tells them to believe. (Or what their priest told their mother, who tells them, but you get the point.)
But those poeple, like most extremists (pro or anti abortion in this case), are a very small but very very very vocal proportion of the population.
Politicians love these kind of issues. They give people the impression that debate is occuring when very few voters are actually involved. Its a great way to avoid needing well defined policies and comprehensive knowledge of the current situation and your own parties policies when being questioned.
These issues are a great way of polarising voters. Make them ingore the things your party is actually doing and make them concentrate on ideals. If you have enough people shouting in the media then most people will think it is important.
Yeh, sorry about that. The quick search I did came back with some older articles prior to the discovery that it was orbiting the sun not the earth.
There are at least two moons orbiting the earth.
The second (about 5 miles in diameter) is called Cruithne.
Antoher potential moon has also been found http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2251386.stm
Obviously the 0.2% that is not empty space stops them :P
The particles they are trying to trap are generally very very small. The areogel is quite thick and allows the kinetic energy of the particle to be dispersed quite slowly as the particle penetrates it. This means the particles can be trapped without damaging them. The further the particle penetrates the more ke it had. The final size and mass of the particle when extracted from the areogel along with the penetration depth can tell you how much energy the particle had and quite probably, for the intersellar particles, which direction they came from.
You do need seperate trials unless all trials are conducted in exactly the same way. This is feasible for a short while but eventually the basis for the tests has to change and then you need to retest all drugs to again assess their relative efficacy.
My example of Asprin does have a strong basis. Asprin has been in use for 107 years. It has been synthesised for 109 years (as a side note, one of its natural forms, willow bark, has been in recoreded use in europe since 1763). This gives a great deal of clinical data as to its effects. At overdose levels it does not aliviate pain as much as other drugs (morphine). Note that I am not trying to say it is the best or worst pain relief for any individual with any arbitrary complaint. It is less harmfull to MOST patients then morphine or heroin but is less effective at pain relief. Stomach ulcers can be exacerbated by it so if you are suffering pain from ulcers you probably should not use asperin. Heroin is far more effective at relieving pain but its long and short term side effects are not pleasent (Asprin and Heroin were first synthesised at about the same time by one man (Felix Hoffmann)). The company, Bayers, that Hoffmann was working for shelved Asprin in favor of Heroin as they thought it more effective. Time has shown that Heroin is significantly more effective at relieving pain for most people. However it also is addictive and has no known benifical side effects.
So yes, over time, some idea of the relative effectivness of a drug can be determined (in a vauge way). But still a drug should be chosen based on the condition of the patient not on some abstract relative performance.
I do agree that the results of the FDA tests should be public domain.
The example was just to demonstrate the point I was describing. However it could also be considered a proof that relative efficacy is not important as it shows that there is at least one drug whose primary effects are not as pronounced as other drugs but which is wanted, needed and often a preferable drug for many patients.
....". This says nothing about the short and long term side effects, cost or basically how appropriate is is for YOU. It also says nothing about how well the drug performs relative to other drugs that are not included in the tests (and they cannot test against all other possible treatments)
As an earlier poster described, Phase I and II and III clinical trials are where human side effects and primary effects can be assessed. Thats after the FDA has shown that its not particularly likely to kill people and before they start giving it to people.
So after a drug is approved by the FDA it is known to have acceptable short term side effects, possibly unknown long term effects and has been shown to be effective in its primary claim.
Now why would they need to perform comparative trials? To do that would require massive clinical trials (read as very very expensive). So they don't. They have shown that the drugs are, to a high probablity, safe and effective from then on the public become the guinea pigs and the relative utility of the drug becomes better understood.
Im trying to say that without tens of thousands of people with a wide variety of conditions trying a drug its relative performance cannot be assessed. It currently takes about 8 1/2 years from drug synthesis to FDA approval but you are suggesting that they delay approval even longer (10 to 15 years) to be able to print on the label "This drug is on average 2.8% more effective at reducing eczema than taditional steroid applications for people without condition X, symptom y, tendency z or
So I will say it again; It is not important whether a drug has a better or worse performance then any other drug. The FDA should not and problaby could not make that assessment.
It does not matter if the drug is more or less effective then other drugs on the market. Many drugs (like asprin) have been shown to have benifical secondary affects (lowered blood pressure and anti-clot) even though thier primary affect is less effective then other drugs (iboprophine or morphine for that matter) currently on the market.
Some people are alergic to, or have bad site effects from, certain drugs. Another, albiet less effective, drug with the same affect could help here. Then there is drug combinations. The primary effects of some drugs combine in an addative manner while thier side effects do not. This means that greater pain relief could be provided with lower risk of addiction or overdose.
The full utility of a particular drug often only becomes known when it is in use. To get it into use you have to be fairly sure it won't kill too many people.
It is also very hard to quantify how much better or worse one drug is then another as the actual effect tends to depend on particular patient
> Hydrogen has not been developed as a energy producer, only a energy storage method.
That was the point I was trying to make. Even if biofuels are not net energy producers they can still be used, in the way that hydrogen is used, as a energy store and transportation medium. Both would require ramping up the energy production by other means.
Reducing use is an even better solution but not a particularly popular one. I live in the UK and in certain areas (major cities) there is good, if crowded, public transport (which flexible work hours could help alot with by stretching the rush hours). Most people live fairly close to thier work (less then 15 miles) and there are an increasing number of bike lanes to encourage use of bicycles. Bus lanes are springing up everywhere. In london cars are charged for entry to the city centre. All of these have been made to happen dispite strong opposition (well...apart from the bike lanes and living close to work). They were not popular but they do seem to be achiving the goals of reducing car use in cities and encouraging alternate transportation.
Accoring to the US DOE and USDA ethanol and biodiesel are net energy producers.1 .pdf
l .toocostly.ssl.html
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer721/aer72
However others disagree
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/ethano
Its interesting to note the different ways they measure the energy.
But, as I said, it does not matter if they are net energy producers. As a mechaism for transporting and storing energy that is (mostly) compatible with current infrastructure (cars and gas stations) they are very useful. Using them would require an energy top-up from other sources (name the renewable power supply of your choice here) but that may not negate thier convienience. It will probably be a lot simpler then trying to switch to a hydrogen economy, but would not resolve issues with local pollution build up (your cities would still be smoggy) as hydrogen would.
Once the amount of energy requiured to extract oil from the ground exceeds the amount of energy we obtain from it...guess what will happen? Yep we'll carry on extracting oil from the ground. Oil is used for many things unrelated to energy production. As an energy carrier it, like biofuels (some of which are net energy producers), is a very convienient high density energy store. Should we carry on extracting oil just to use it as a convienient transport mechanism? No, but we probably will anyway.
Why put lots of money into developing a hyrogen economy when the infrastructure for a biofuel enconomy already exists? It will be interesting to see which, if either, approach wins out.
How about the ever excellent "never terminating loop"
// do stuff here
float i = 0.0;
for (float i = 0.0; i < 10000000; i+=1.0) {
}
I think he means that any and all logic systems can be created from NAND gates and interconnets alone. Similarly, you can do the same with NOR gates. They are called "universal gates". This means that all processors, turing machines inclusive, can be created using just NAND gates and interconnects. You would need an infinite amount of them but who is counting? This also means that all current computer hardware can be constructed using a finite number of nand gates. Since finite is generaly acknowleged to be significantly less then infinite this hints that no current computers are turing complete (due to physical memory limitations alone)
matfud
That went to shit
int bar = 0;
{
int bar = 1;
while (bar < 10) {
bar ++;
}
}
if (bar == 0) {
System.out.println("TRUE");
}
Many languages that use braces as block delimiters allow you to use them anywhere. They are not just associated with for/if/while/bla statements. In java they are just scoping devices. They limit the variables defined within them to he scope they define. so the following works
int bar = 0;
{
int bar = 1;
while (bar
And should print "true"
The indentation approach to code blocks misses this aspect and cannot mimick it as two sequential code bloks would be indented similarly.
The cost of next gen fabrication plants is so high that most of these companies cannot risk building one on thier own. Even intel would be remarkably weary of the risk. So if they get together they can share the cost of construction and development and share the risk. Nobody is sure how good the yields are for .45 nm in volume production environments as there are no volume production facilities for the technology at the moment. Building the foundary is very very very expensive. It will take time and research to produce acceptable yields (most likely a year or two after opening if ever) but if they are first then they stand to make a huge amount of money (as they will probably patent important/crucial techniques). They will likely use the foundary to make chips for anyone who is willing to pay for the 0.45 nm process (AMD for example does not own current generation foundaries (let alone have enough money to build .45 nm foundaries)
No, There is land that hasn't been built on around interhanges. It is used, just not for buildings. As such it is not "vacant land". Motorway service stations (ie fast food, petrol, shops etc.) are sometimes built next to off ramps. More often the stations are built with thier own off ramps. Most off ramps from motorways do not have traffic lights (wonderful invention called a round-about) and are normally are well lit (power would not be a problem even if they did need traffic lights because there are lights already there)
Petrol stations on major (non motorway roads) tend to be built alongside roads not at junctions. Planning permission to build them includes analysis of the effect thier entrances would have on traffic flow. Keeping them away from junctions (especially busy ones) supposidely improves traffic flow/saftey.
This argument is really pointless
Trees are a bitch no matter which language you use. If you can find a tree that satisfies your requirements then you are golden. But most of the time the "tree" modules/javascript/whatever does not satisfy your requirements.
As an example: most javascript based trees require the entire tree structure to be available before the tree is rendered for the client. This may work for you, it has not for me. Most Ajax tree systems (ie they request the children of a node you are expanding rather then having the information up front) only work if the tree is not able to change. If the tree can change then they do not update correctly.
By the way, that is not specifically ruby related, it is related to the "trees" that are available. Ruby will not help you here. nothing will help you here unless you want to do exactly what someone else has already done.
We've just done a few large projects using JSF (actually myfaces) and have found that it is very expensive up front. Design and implementaion take a lot of effort and knowledge to ensure that everything does not "go to shit" later on. By the way the developers are all very experienced (but not in JSF). Whether it is more maintainable in the long term is currently unanswerable as these projects are still new but most of the code is clean well structured java. Much of the up-front work was developing custom JSF components (which makes everything else much cleaner and simpler)
Often because they are off ramps from motorways or places where two major road cross. Nobody wants to live near them as they are rather unpleasent places due to having nothing there apart from busy roads. Again these have often been built after houses and towns so they tend to avoid the houses and towns.
Have you tried wap.google.com?
Yahoo is reputed to be launching a site that will convert all serach result web pages into something more suitable for your phone. Not just wap phones either.
Replying to AC's. What next.
In the UK the long distance power grid tends not to follow roads. It dosen't need shallow gradients like cars. Even if it did you would have to have the mother of all step down transformers to tap it for power for your traffic lights. So they need a residentail/industrial level power supply. There are lots of them around but if the nearest is more then 1/2 a mile from the traffic lights then it is likely to cost more to install the cable (underground in this country for this category of power) then one of these ramps. Are they a good idea in all circumstances? No, of course not. Are there circumstances where they may be a good idea. Yes, most certainly.
It is quite common in this country for traffic lights to be situated on major roads that are a mile or more from the nearest inhabited areas. See, our infrastructure predates cars therefore major roads tend to end outside of or to go around towns and cities. This means there are major intersections away from built up areas.